Taylor County Churches

This is the beginning of a listing of the Churches (both past and present) of Taylor County.
The LINK will take you to a history of the church and a list of the ministers who have served it. If you have a marriage licences with M.G. "Minister of the Gospel", you might be able to locate the denomination by searching these lists.

All information welcome!!

BUTLER

Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Southeast of Butler

Butler United Methodist Church1840-present. Originally Red Level M.E. Church

Butler Church of the Nazarene

Corbitt Methodist Church (1855 - ? 1916)

Butler Baptist Church

Mt. Olive Church - Pottersville

Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church

REYNOLDS

Ariel Baptist Church (now Reynolds Baptist)
Reynolds First Baptist Church

New Hope Primitive Baptist

Reynolds United Methodist

Turner's Free Will Baptist Chapel

PANHANDLE

Antioch Baptist Church

Bethel Primitive Baptist Church1838-present

Crowell Methodist Church 1819- present

Midway Baptist

Wesley United Methodist. Cemetery
It was on the old Wire Road that existed in the early to mid 1800's. (near Talbot border in northwest corner of Taylor) There was an early Methodist Missionary movement over at Ft. Mitchell, Russell County. Ala. There appear to be a string of Methodist churches across that part of Taylor County, just North of Butler, starting with Crowell.

DAVISTON

Bethel Baptist Church 1830-1859 (Horeb Church)

Horeb Baptist ChurchThis church is actually in Talbot but cemetery is in Taylor.

HOWARD

Harmony Baptist Church
Probably in vicinity of Mauk and village of Kipling.

Howard Methodist Church (1870 - present)

Mauk Baptist

CEDAR CREEK

Beulah Church

Sand Bethel Methodist Church

Mt. Nebo Primitive Baptist Church (Charing)

Prosperity Church

Pilgrim Rest Primitive Baptist Church

African American Churches in Taylor County

Freerun Baptist Church. It is toward the Beechwood Community. Take 128 South out of Reynolds and turn left at old Perkins Store. Also has a cemetery

Damascus Church. Branch of Antioch Church. Deed from John T. Gray August 6th 1881 two acres of land located on land lot 50 in the fourteenth district of Taylor County to the trustees for the exclusive purpose of a church [Damascus Colored Baptist Church] W.H. Justus, Clerk .

Macedonia Church is located on the old Butler road at Macedonia Baptist Church. Also has a Cemetery.

Providence Baptist Churchis located between Reynolds and Butler off of Hwy 96 at the Joiner Place. Also has a cemetery.

Rocky Mount Baptist Church (Panhandle)
1899 1-5 (3-3 1899) 14th Dist LL146 1 � ac. $15 J.J. Ruffin to Trustees Rocky Mount Church[African-American] Emanuel Montgomery, Rich Jackson, Ala Johnson, C.H. Adams. W.D. Bk D p 690-1

African American Churches Reynolds

Bethesda Baptist Church (est.1888), Rev. Alvin Turner, Pastor

Spring Field Baptist Church (est. 1916), Rev. L.M. Mcrae, pastor

St. Phillip Community Church, Rev. Willie Lynn, Pastor

Antioch Primitive Baptist Church, rev. Kenneth Spearman, Pastor

Bethel Temple Holiness Church, Elder L. Hudson, Pastor

If there are others, I would like to list them here.

E. F. Beckemeyer
I can do look-ups in the 1881 "History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia with Biographical Compendium and Portrait Gallery of Baptist Ministers and Georgia Baptists compiled for the Christian Index"

This book contains several hundred biographical descriptions that usually give birth and death dates, placenames, parents, wives and number of children, physical descriptions and an etching type portrait.

Another source of information is the publication: Southern Christian Advocate . It is located in Southern Methodist University,Dallas and Emory Univesity in Atlanta. Covers Methodists in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Some records have been published.

GEORGIA BAPTIST CHURCH RECORDS Stored on Micro film and available thru library loan. Located in the Georgia Baptist History Depository, Special Collections, Main Library, Mercer University, Macon, Georgia http://tarver.mercer.edu/special_collections/default.htm

Special Uncataloged Materials - Baptist History Susan G. Broome Head of Special Collections Baptist and University Archives Mercer University Jack Tarver Library Phone (478) 301-2968 1300 Edgewood Avenue Fax (478) 301-2111 Macon, GA 31207-0001 Email [email protected] http://tarver.mercer.edu/special_collections/default.htm Lots of information put on line by Robert G. Gardner "Georgia Baptist Convention (GBC) After several failed attempts at union (1801, 1802, 1803-c.1810), the largest group of Baptists formed a general body in 1822 which gradually became statewide. Now called the Georgia Baptist Convention, this body supported, and continues to support, Mercer University, The Christian Index (the state Baptist periodical), and various state and national Baptist mission, educational, and publication projects. Georgia Baptists were significantly involved in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention (Augusta, 1845). The Civil War and its aftermath severely curtailed all of the convention's efforts. The founding of the State Mission Board and the employment of a professional leader, J. H. DeVotie, in 1877 proved to be significant as a means of rejuvenating broader Baptist ministries. Except for the depression years, thereafter expansion was steady. Membership in 1998 included 92 associations, 3,415 churches, and 1,334,940 members. Affiliated with the convention are 70 African-American churches and over 250 congregations speaking 20 languages other than English. J. Robert White is full-time executive director-treasurer with headquarters in Atlanta.

Information about Primitive Baptist Churches

Locating Your Methodist Minister Ancestor

Pitts Theological Library - Emory University

Death and Obituary Notices from the Southern Christian Advocate (Methodist) 1867-1878
Allen Anderson has abstracted those dealing with Sumter County specifically, but many other counties are mentioned as well.

Here's a step-by-step
instruction on ways to research Methodist minister ancestors. 
Rev. Dr. LEWIS is used as an example.

These steps can be found on the web page for this list at:

http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Choir/1824/methodistresearch.html

Please bookmark this page, as everything here is detailed there.

Although we don't have his date of birth or death, we do have the very
important piece of locations.  Given locations, the first place to stop
is the ANNUAL CONFERENCE ARCHIVES for the location where your ancestor
lived or preached.  Don't know what an ANNUAL CONFERENCE is?  The page
above has a link explaining the structure of the United Methodist
church.  Here is the link:

http://www.umc.org/abouttheumc/organization/

For now, just know that for each state there is one or more conferences
covering a particular geographical area.  In our example, we know that
Rev. Dr. LEWIS was in Blount County, Alabama.  On the list web site are
two links to archives, one using a table at this page:

http://www.gcah.org/Conference/umcdirectory.htm

and one giving the full list of all the archives at this page:

http://www.gcah.org/Directory/CommAH.htm

The latter page has also archives for JURISDICTIONS which are something
like "regions", or a group of conferences.

Using the table link above, click on ALABAMA.  You find that there are
two conferences, and that the first page has a rough pictorial map of
the conference lines.  Determine where Blount County is, and click on
the applicable conference.  In my own case, my gggrandfather and his
children eventually lived in several counties, and because both county
lines and conference lines changed over the years, I contacted both
archives.  You might wish to do the same.  By clicking on the link for
Alabama-West Florida, you are brought to a page where, wonderfully,
archivist Mary Ann Pickard's e-mail address is highlighted.  Click on
her address, and instantly you can write to her with your query.  If
your Alabama ancestor's conference was in North Alabama, clicking on
that link will bring you to the email address for archivist Guy Hubbs.

Now hopefully Mary Ann won't mind if I now use her as an example.  Many
archivists are volunteers, or part-timers working at low pay.  Often,
they are librarians for whatever college the archives are housed in. 
Their first duty is usually to the conference, and the conference work
usually does not entail genealogy.  So genealogical requests are often
filled through the kindness and generosity of the particular archivist.

In my case, like Rev. Dr. LEWIS, my ancestor had another profession in
addition to the ministry and he remained in one place.  Archivists might
well respond to you that your ancestor was a "local preacher" or not a
minister and immediately tell you that they are unlikely to have records
on him/her.  Kindly and gently ask the archivist to check whatever
sources they might have.  Offer to hire a college student or send a
donation to cover the cost of the person's time.  Luckily for me, Mary
Ann was able to locate a file folder that had been mis-filed and
apparently should have been sent to the other archives in Birmingham. 
Info in that folder led to the discovery of notes that indicated that
there were more materials in the vault.  In the vault were, lo and
behold, a copy of a scrapbook of my gggrandfather's writings on the
history of Methodism in Alabama, and a lot of biographical info,
including genealogical charts prepared by a former archivist.  This, my
friends, demonstrates the power of looking further and behind the
obvious.  

Go to the archives if you can, and gently ask, beg, plead, or volunteer
for extra tasks in exchange for looking for your ancestor.  Upon further
inquiry, I found many of my family members' obits, marriage
announcements, and advertisements for businesses contained in the
Alabama Christian Advocate.  Some of these articles were referenced in
an index; many were not.  There are Christian Advocates for most
locations, and most have been microfilmed by the LDS.  LOOK AT THEM. 
The Methodist Genealogical Society is currently transcribing indexes and
records for the Alabama Christian Advocate for online research, and we
will eventually be covering all states.

The conference archivist is truly your best friend.  And only a rare one
is being paid to fill genealogical requests.  This is not their fault. 
For Methodists, knowledge of ancestors is not a crucial tenet of their
spiritual journey, and Methodist archives do not exist for the purpose
of genealogy.  We hope in the future, though, that volunteers and
funding will exist to provide better access to records.  This is one of
the reasons for this very list.

Let's say you strike out at the conference level.  Don't forget to check
surrounding conferences.  In Rev. Dr. Lewis' case, there is another
state and other locations to repeat the above steps for.  And consider
going on up to the jurisdictional level.

Normally, and ironically, the LAST resort for researching most Methodist
ancestors is on the national level.  This is why we don't recommend
starting with the archives referred to on the GCAH page.  You will find
much more details on your ancestor on the local level, and the national
archives normally would not have any info other than on fully ordained
ministers assigned to a conference, and their info will generally be
that which the conference sent them in the first place.  Plus, unless
their policy has changed, you will be charged a fee for them to even
look.

But, I DO strongly recommend the GCAH website for a sense of the history
of the church, and for information that is national in scope.

Several links are mentioned on this list's home page mentioned above,
along with several other suggestions.

Please, if anyone has additional information or suggestions, or has had
a different experience with researching at the various places mentioned,
please let us know.  The info above is based upon my own personal
experience which of course is different from everyone else's.

Don't forget to check the archives of the conference where the church
is/was located when looking for old church records.

Hints on how to do this are not only on the GCAH site, but also on this
list's web page at:

http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Choir/1824/methodistresearch.html
Elizabeth DuBois Russo  [email protected]


METHODIST PUBLISHED BOOKS

Methodist preachers in Georgia, 1783-1900 / edited and compiled by Harold Lawrence.(term(s) matched 5 times)
Lawrence, Harold (Harold A.)


 Smith, George Gilman, 1836-1913.
 The history of Georgia Methodism from 1786 to 1866 
 Atlanta, Ga., A. B. Caldwell, 1913.
 430 p. incl. plates, ports. port. 24cm.

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